What are some of the most horrific psychological experiments?
May 29, 2022 at 11:53
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Membre depuis Jan 25, 2022
posts 165
May 29, 2022 at 11:53
Watson and Rayner's Little Albert Experiment
If you have ever taken an Introduction to Psychology class, then you are probably at least a little familiar with Little Albert. Behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner conditioned a boy to fear a white rat, and this fear even generalized to other white objects including stuffed toys and Watson's own beard.
Obviously, this type of experiment is considered very controversial today. Frightening an infant and purposely conditioning the child to be afraid is clearly unethical. As the story goes, the boy and his mother moved away before Watson and Rayner were able to decondition the child, so many people have wondered if there might be a man out there with a mysterious fear of furry white objects.
Some researchers have suggested that the boy at the center of the study was actually a child named Douglas Merit.
These researchers believe that the child was not the healthy boy Watson described, but actually a cognitively impaired boy who ended up dying of hydrocephalus when he was just six years old. If this is true, it makes Watson's study even more disturbing and controversial.
However, more recent evidence suggests that the real Little Albert was actually a boy named William Albert Barger.
Thanks!
If you have ever taken an Introduction to Psychology class, then you are probably at least a little familiar with Little Albert. Behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner conditioned a boy to fear a white rat, and this fear even generalized to other white objects including stuffed toys and Watson's own beard.
Obviously, this type of experiment is considered very controversial today. Frightening an infant and purposely conditioning the child to be afraid is clearly unethical. As the story goes, the boy and his mother moved away before Watson and Rayner were able to decondition the child, so many people have wondered if there might be a man out there with a mysterious fear of furry white objects.
Some researchers have suggested that the boy at the center of the study was actually a child named Douglas Merit.
These researchers believe that the child was not the healthy boy Watson described, but actually a cognitively impaired boy who ended up dying of hydrocephalus when he was just six years old. If this is true, it makes Watson's study even more disturbing and controversial.
However, more recent evidence suggests that the real Little Albert was actually a boy named William Albert Barger.
Thanks!
Membre depuis Aug 05, 2021
posts 401
Jun 01, 2022 at 17:30
I've also been fascinated by obscure psychological studies, this one is definitely interesting. However, I always wonder how they find parents that are willing to subject their children to these types of experiments. I wonder how that affected him in his day to day life after and why the mother decided to move away without letting him be deconditioned.
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